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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870780">CartoRomancy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory'>completetheory</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NiGHTS into Dreams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Language, Nonbinary Character, Other, Tarot, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:26:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackle tells Reala's fortune.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reala/Jackle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>CartoRomancy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts">MadScientific</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nightmare had crystallized into being as architecture wired with adrenaline. Each jagged plinth was a tribute to the fear of the unknown. Shadows were deep and wide in that realm, cloaking beings whose anatomy-geometry was two parts whim, and one part leitmotif. </p><p>The Maren called this malleable flesh the <i>nak</i>, the 'clever trick' of dreamstuff that could reshape itself while holding the consciousness. The more powerful the personality, the more robust the maker's nak. </p><p>This was what gave Wizeman's prodigal offspring, Nights, so much sway in these realms. Only Reala and Jackle could boast similar degrees of influence - bar Wizeman oneself - and their mare-selves, the places which they also existed as... </p><p>Ah, selph. It all broke down in English and bemo-jee, the 'logic of the waking mind'. Harder to explain than to demonstrate. Worse than trying to describe a dream after waking, where the impressions were soft and snow-formed. </p><p>Bones broke on Earth. Individuals were separate from their homes. In Nightmare, bones merely bent, and the home was dwelling like a soul dwelt within a body. Curtains draped skin over wooden ribs, ductile lungs, the colored subconscious that was attic and basement. That was as close as the human tongue could come to describing the reality of the creatures of this plane. </p><p>Shuffling cards from within the Soft Museum, with the scattershot Grecian pillars and fae-gate arches, the outdoors all blooming green and blue sunshine. Indoors, the occupant (and nak, and mare, and jester, and chameleon, and soothsayer, but wait, there was more!) plied their fragments and facets all in one joint effort, laying out cards in a crescent shape. </p><p>"What do we see," Jackle ran their fingertips down the narrow spine of the deck that remained, "What do we perceive? What can we read? Ahah... The querent is the anchor and the hook that holds. They represent stability and stubborn-ility. The trial... is the ruined arch, overgrown and out of use. A fall from grace? Awakening from faith? Disillusion, dissolution?" </p><p>Across from the Mantle, the long, graceful princeq Reala lounged, giving the odd smile at a particular piece of wordplay. Buoyed by the whole as if it were a musical score. It was just fun to hear Jackle natter like that, even as their information came in dribs and drabs.</p><p>"The seaward figurehead. The chimera. This reading is as stable as a funhouse floor, Reala, my dove." </p><p>"What does it mean?" Reala invested belief in fortunes when Jackle spoke-sooth. </p><p>Jackle flipped the third card, leaving the last unturned and ran through the context entirely again. They was silent, cat eyes darting in internal symphony.</p><p>"Don't gentle it." Reala urged. </p><p>Finely painted, sophisticated claws tapped the face of the penultimate card. "Not curiosity, not ignorance, not malice. But the chain reaction that begets a hundred, if you decide not to leave alone. Is your role the obstacle or is your attitude toward the role the obstacle? ... noble Reala."</p><p>The lithe Nightmaren looked up, ver jester-like kerai - the antennae that betrayed ver mood - curling. Jackle's own kerai, tiny and alert, bobbed in the same approximation of a grin without a mouth. </p><p>"These two, the figurehead and the chimera together represent marked instability." Jackle foraged on, "What you represent, the cause and purpose that you champion, and the bits-and-pieces it really is."</p><p>"It goes poorly." Reala said.</p><p>"Because you pull punches. And that is because you want our companion back. You dream impossible dreams, even for us." </p><p>The fourth card remained unturned. Reala reached for it, razor sharp edges, and Jackle plucked it up and out of sight, crumpling it in one hand. By no bemo-jee, but rather the dreaming jeenba logic, Jackle drew the card whole again and showed Reala the mirrored face; ver own reflection. </p><p>"What does Reala want? Who is Reala?" Jackle asked, and their voice <i>was</i> gentle, despite Reala's near-consuming wish for the purification of pain. "The stage is bright, the pit is dark. There are no demands." </p><p>Reala touched the mirrored card, and saw verself, for the first time astonished by how worn and dogged and hard-won ve looked. Ve rearranged ver nak to be brighter, longer of tooth, makeup sharper. But of course Jackle saw ver with dropped guard. </p><p>"Such a rude fortune teller." The joke was weak, but Reala's smile was stronger. </p><p>Jackle longed to embrace Reala in protective fabric, to shield ver from the world and from verself. "Are you burdened by truth, Reala?" </p><p>"No. Not around you." Reala did then climb against ver elder, tucking in close, and the kerai touched between them in an intimate kofe, like a temple kiss. "Soanama, Jackle. You are patient with me."</p><p>"Yra soanama," Jackle refuted, lightly, "You are a pleasure. I only want you to be less hard on yourself." </p><p>"I am being selfish." Reala felt the good weight of nak on nak, enveloped by Jackle's mare and mien and selfhood, and could have lived there, "I will do better for you." </p><p>"And for yourself?"</p><p>"And for myself."</p>
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